Favorite Schools

Favorite Teams

Greater New Orleans

Change Region

comments

'Band of Brothers' battalion survives Army downsizing, military newspaper says

band of brothers.jpg

Maj. RIchard "Dick" Winters was a member of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, whose exploits during World War II were told by historian Stephen Ambrose in "Band of Brothers," and an HBO mini series by that name. Army Times reports that the 506th Regiment will survive when its parent unit, the 4th Brigade Combat Team, is inactivated later this year under Army downsizing plans. (AP)
(Courtesy of Sgt. Maj. Herman W. Clemens, Ret. / AP)

The U.S. Army’s 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, has survived to fight another day. Made famous by the late historian Stephen Ambrose in his book “Band of Brothers,” the 506th's 1st and 2nd Battalions were spared last month when the Army inactivated its parent unit, the 4th Brigade Combat Team, Army Times reported Monday.

Through “Band of Brothers,” which spawned an HBO television miniseries by the same name, Ambrose told the story of soldiers in Easy Company, 2nd Battalion. They parachuted into Normandy during the 1944 D-Day landings and fought across Europe.

The 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, is one of 10 of the brigades being inactivated as the Army seeks to reduce its ranks by the end of 2015, the news outlet reported in an article about which units will be eliminated and when. The 4th Brigade was located at Fort Campbell, Ky.

The brigade’s 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, which included Ambrose’s Easy Company, was assigned to the division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, Army Times reported. The 1st Battalion, 506th, will become part of the division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team.

The newspaper reports that the Army wants to preserve as much of its units’ heraldry and lineage as possible. “There’s really no avoiding the fact that a significant number of units will be inactivated,” Ned Bedessem, a historian at the Army Center of Military History, told Army Times. “But we have rules of engagement for how lineages will be preserve in the Army.”

According to the report, the 10th Mountain Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, at Fort Drum, N.Y., will inactivate in the fall. Its soldiers will transfer to the division’s 1st and 2nd brigades. The 10th Mountain Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team is based at Fort Polk in Louisiana, which is not expected to be affected by the Army plans.